[Question:]{.underline} Is it permissible for a traditional Catholic to teach in a public school?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is permissible for a traditional Catholic teacher to teach in a public school, but only provided that he or she does not compromise his Catholic principles.
Nevertheless, a Catholic who really loves his Faith would want to teach in a traditional Catholic environment, where the knowledge that he imparts can be integrated into the knowledge of God, religion and the Faith, and can be subordinated to the Divine Wisdom that we learn from our Catholic Faith. He will also appreciate the moral and disciplinary support that he finds in a Catholic school, and the harmony that exists within the faculty and between the direction and the students of the school.
He will consequently not be deceived by the apparently greater good of being a “lighthouse of truth in the stormy sea of indifferentism”. A good Catholic teacher, determined to live a serious and profound spiritual life, will do much more good in a traditional Catholic school, in which he is backed up by his Principal and fellow teachers, than in the secular environment of a public school. For in the Catholic school, he can work to form an elite, which elite once formed will continue on his own work for souls. However in a secular environment he is limited to simply touching souls, and is unlikely to bring about a profound change in such souls, unless he can convince them to enter into a traditional Catholic school.
This having been said, it is certainly true that some teachers do not have the possibility of teaching in a traditional Catholic school, or cannot live without the income and benefits that the public school system provides. In such a case, it is permissible, provided that there is no danger to their own Faith, and provided that he or she stands up publicly for Catholic principles of Faith and morality. In this way, he or she would not be seen to cooperate in any way with the evil and falsehood that are propagated in public schools, nor to support the system without God that is destroying our youth, and could certainly be a blessing to the isolated souls that are seeking the truth.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.